Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

ll The Gentle Art of Runnz'ng 249 and as God made him. The runner, more per– haps than almost any other athlete, realizes an ideal of unity and the elimination of de– tails. The eight-oared shell, when the crew have caught the "beat," is a sup~rbly beautiful thing. But the individual oarsman sits on a sliding seat, his feet are strapped into shoes, he is bound, so to speak, to an oar, which is hung in a lock smeared with grease, and the slightest slip in technique spoils everything. In other words, your individual oarsman is, artistically speaking, merely a part of the general mechanism, and there are very few moments when a crew is rowing so supremely well that each member of the eight forgets completely the mechanical difficulties and details of his work. The run– ner, on the other hand, is completely sufficient unto himself. Standing alone on the good earth with woodland and meadow spread out before him he can laugh aside, for the moment, trolley cars and trains and those fooli h grooves called streets. When hill-top beckons to hill-top across the valley, he can follow, and when the purple horizon calls he can answer. The runner who has learned these things, who can, even vaguely, feel what Euphranor called this "subliming of beefsteak into poetry," has added to himself a sixth sense, which gives to the simplest physical exercise a new spirit and significance,